Welcome to the online home of Audra Jennings, a book publicist and crafter. Here I share about both. I hope you'll find books you'll want to read and crafts you will want to order. I live a rather boring, single life. At times I would like to think I am humorous. The kids I teach in Bible class tend to think so. I also blog about current seasons of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. I don't know why, I just do.

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Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Because the marriage matters even more than the wedding

Part 2 of an interview with Rob Green,

Author of Tying
the Knot:

A Premarital Guide to a Strong & Lasting Marriage

Every engaged couple hopes to build a lasting and
satisfying marriage, but it doesn’t happen automatically. In his interactive premarital
study, Tying the Knot, author and
counselor Rob Green explores how key issues such as conflict, communication,
finances and intimacy are successfully navigated in a Christ-centered marriage.
Green seeks to help a new generation of newlyweds build their marriage on the
lasting foundation of God’s grace.

Q: Many brides and grooms spend more time planning their wedding day
than planning for their marriage. What marriage plans should an engaged couple
make before their big day?

In many ways, that is what this whole book is about. I
tell couples as sweetly as I can I care a little bit about the three hours surrounding
their ceremony and reception, but I care a lot about the 50+ years they will
have after those three hours. I understand there are many tasks involved in preparing
for the wedding day (not to mention the financial commitments), but when the
party is over, two people must learn to love and live with one another.

Time spent together on improving their personal
relationship with Christ will pay huge dividends after the wedding and help
them love one another.

Please don’t hear me say I don’t care about the “big
day.” It is a big day, and I want them to enjoy every minute of it. I just want
them to spend as much time thinking about their walk with Jesus as they do
which invitations to choose, which dress to buy, and what type of food will be
served at the reception.

Q: In your counseling experience, what is the number-one issue that
trips up young couples? How do you address it in Tying the Knot?

I have had the privilege to teach an adult Bible fellowship
class of young couples (married for five years or fewer) for 10 years and have
seen all sorts of challenges. Some struggle with sexual things, whether it be intimacy
with one another or with issues such as pornography. I have seen some struggle with
problem-solving while others have struggled financially. While there is not one
single issue that occurs more than others, the root of those issues is that one
or both do not live for Christ as they should. When that happens, they become
very susceptible to all sorts of issues. That is why throughout the book, in
relationship to all topics, I write about putting Jesus at the center.

Q: Why do you write so candidly about intimacy? That is a subject most
people do not like to discuss.

I used to be the same way. I was afraid to speak about
intimacy. However, I have found a large number of couples struggle with
intimacy during their honeymoon. Despite our society worshipping at the altar
of sex, not everyone has bought into that thinking. So for one person, or maybe
both, there is a little fear about how the sex part of their relationship will
go. It is important for them to understand sex is not about performance but
about relationship. Why did God say all sex was wrong outside of marriage if it
were not first a relationship issue? If sex was exclusively for pleasure, then
God could have opened the floodgates on sex.

This is a very simple and yet profound point in
Scripture. Sex is wonderful in the right context. Couples will be on a journey
together. It might be that the couple will never look better than on their
honeymoon, but it will not be the time for their best sex. That comes as the
relationship develops and matures.

Q: What was the biggest lesson you and your wife learned during the
early years of your relationship?

As with any couple, in our early years of marriage we
experienced some unexpected things no one could have prepared us for. These
were things we simply had to live through. What helped us was remembering our lives
were first dedicated to God. Stephanie could not be my hero and nor could I be
hers. God designed us to be husband and wife, not each other’s saviors.
Stephanie could never be all I needed nor could I be all she needed. Instead,
we both understood what we needed is what the Lord provided. As long as I
thought that way, I could freely give, love and serve.

In some moments, I did not believe Jesus was all I needed,
so I demanded love and service from her. When that happened, it would result in
conflict. The more we saw Christ at the center of our life, the less we relied
on our spouse to be our savior, and the more we were able to love, give and
serve each other.

Q: A lot of young people are cynical about marriage. What would you say
to convince them it is still one of God’s greatest institutions?

Some young people are cynical about a lot of things, not
just marriage. I believe cynicism, in part, is driven by the lack of great role
models. Who wants a marriage if your parents had a lousy one or you were carted
back and forth trying to figure out how to make dad happy at his house and mom
happy at hers? The media is full of stories featuring marriages coming to an
end.

My response is first, “I get it. I completely understand
why you would not want marriage.” But I also believe there are two more
important mitigating factors.

First, we cannot “do what we do” simply by watching
others. The Word of God provides the standard. The more focus on Scripture, the
more we will be convinced marriage is an institution designed by God to bring
him glory and to give us blessing.

Second, just because you have seen some bad examples does
not mean they are the only examples. There are people around us who are
enjoying marital bliss. The news and tabloids do not talk about them, but they
are there. They are trophies of God’s grace. They have learned to love Jesus
first and thus are fully prepared to love their spouse.

Q: How is your chapter on finances different than the classic financial
counsel?

I am interested in couples pleasing God with their money,
not just working out a system where income is more than expenses. Some of the
classic rules like “do not spend more than 28% of your income on housing” are
not important to me because they are not based in Scripture. The Bible
addresses issues of the heart.

It also is concerning to me that some couples have
accumulated a lot of debt, which can be crippling. While the decisions that put
them into debt may have been made before I speak with the couple, we can at
least begin to discuss a strategy to get out of debt.

Q: Why do some couples struggle with problem-solving?

There is a natural tendency in all our hearts to want to
blame others for conflict. We believe conflict would never have happened if
“the other person had not done _________.” This kind of thinking never leads to
problem-solving; it just creates more problems. Jesus taught we have to
consider our own part (Matthew 7:3) before we think about the part others might
play.

Some couples ignore conflict because they are in love!
While there is something healthy about that, there is also something very
dangerous. It is healthy because we do not have to make a big deal about every
little detail. At the same time, it is dangerous because we do not want to
develop the habit of ignoring problems. So helping couples learn to solve
problems really helps them avoid bitterness.

Q: You cover eight key topics, including love, conflict, expectations,
communication, finances and intimacy in Tying
the Knot, but if you had to give just one piece of advice to engaged
couples, what would it be?

I had the privilege of doing a Ph.D. in New Testament
under a man named Dr. Rod Decker. He was a true scholar and a very kind man. He
wrote a paper about the time Jesus was questioned by the Sadducees regarding
marriage. Their point was to prove that the belief in the resurrection was
silly. They said a woman married a man who died. His brother fulfilled his
obligation to marry this woman and he died. And so the story goes that the same
woman married all 7 of the brothers before she died. They ask Jesus who will be
her husband in the resurrection? Jesus said marriage is not part of
resurrection life.

As I reflected on my mentor’s paper it dawned on me — marriage
is for now. Marriage is a blessing God gave us to navigate through this sin-cursed
world together. We may not know what is in store for our lives, but marriage is
a part of God’s care. He gave us marriage to make the challenging life on earth
better while we wait for the coming of Jesus where our concern will be more
about him than it will be about us.

So what would I tell them is, “Enjoy every minute of your
marriage. God gave it to you as a blessing for the here and now. Every minute
you spend feuding is a minute of blessing you are missing.”

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About Me

Audra is a publicist who promotes books and writes about other people for a living. She's also a hermit who spends way too much time within the walls of her home since her office is just upstairs.

When she's not trying to get you to read a variety of books, she's probably watching too much reality TV or annoying her Facebook friends with pictures of crochet and other craft projects.

You can find Audra on her blog, posting rants about something (it's not her neighbors anymore) and other meaningless nonsense (www.audrajennings.com), or on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram where she never fails to make snarky remark.

My ridiculously long FTC disclaimer

In accordance with the FTC Guidelines for blogging and endorsements, please note that I have not received payment for any of the reviews posted on this blog.

I am employed both a freelance publicist and a publicist for a publisher and do post press releases, interviews and blog tours for the books and/or products I represent. However, I post on my blog by choice.

When I do post reviews for books that I have been sent review copies of by publishers, I will note that on posts.

On occasion, I also buy books and read and review them for enjoyment too.